Hopes were high for this match as Southgate were on a winning streak and Teddington, though champions last year, had surprisingly lost all 5 matches to date.

Sadly, a poor batting performance saw the demise of the home team and they eventually lost by 79 runs.

Teddington won the toss and using the league’s new points system to good effect decided to bat, which meant that if they were to win they would gain an extra 3 points whilst a winning draw would gain them an extra 2 points.

Southgate’s pace attack made few inroads into the visitor’s first few batsmen, and it was down to another brilliant run out by Michael Stevens to gain the first wicket of James Keightley, Teddington captain and highly rated cricketer. Once the spinners began operating in harness, however, the momentum of the game changed. Lassie (6-52 ) in 22 overs and Ashley Sivarajah (3-75 ) in 21.3 overs, took full advantage of the conditions and Teddington were forced to use up their full quota of overs,65, before they were finally bowled out for 213. One highlight of the innings was a brilliant stumping by Phil Dunnett from a turning, lifting off break from Lassie.

All Southgate C.C followers would know that, for some psychological, unknown reason, attaining scores of over 200 batting second has often proved unreachable. and so it proved again as last week’s ‘rock’, James Thompson, fell early to Teddington’s high quality seam attack. There was time for Michael Stevens to be dropped by wicketkeeper Healy, son of Aussie Test ‘keeper, Ian and soon, Teddington brought on their trump card, leg spinner, Keightley, brother of the captain, and he was to bowl 18 consecutive overs taking 6-69.

Despite bowling 2 potential four balls per over in typical leg spinner style he also bowled a high quota of heavily spun leg breaks and no Southgate batsman could really cope with the excessive turn. Each of his six wickets were classic dismissals, caught at slip or stumped and wickets fell steadily. Tom Edrich battled away making 45 in 102 balls before he finally succumbed, surprisingly, to pace. At 108-8 Luke Hutton (23) was joined by Suresh(12) and for a brief spell there was some hope of saviour as they added 26 and also defended well.

However, Luke was bowled by an absolute beauty of a yorker by the captain and Southgate were all out for 134 with just six overs remaining.

13 points for Teddington, which still leaves them bottom of the table, but dangerous. Other near neighbours near the foot, Stanmore, Indian Gymkhana and Finchley, all lost.

Middlesex Tamils Sports and Social Club are new to the Middlesex League and so many of Southgate 2nd XI arrived well after the meet time having first visited a neighbouring ground. This trap and having to run an errand at Lord’s meant that MTSSC was the 3rd ground R Johnson visited on Saturday morning, and so he arrived as SCC were undertaking the considerable walk from the changing rooms to take the field.

Around half an hour previously, skipper S Faruqi had lost the toss and was fully expecting to be asked to bat on a pitch and outfield affected by Friday’s rain. When MTSSC’s captain actually opted to bat, Faruqi was in such disbelief that without thinking he blurted out “Sorry, so you’re going to bat, yeah?”. When the oppo skip confirmed Faruqi danced a merry jig back to his teammates to pass on the good news.

Southgate’s opening bowling partnership was the left arm duo of S Wadham and B Elders. Scoring was very difficult in the initial overs as both bowlers exploited the conditions well; Wadham finding his usual shape and Elders banging the ball into the pitch just back of a length around off stump. In about the 5th over Wadham had his first victim and as the unrelenting pressure built his 2nd wicket came with less than 20 on the board inside 10 overs.

It was around this point that the Southgate fielders realised they were witnessing something remarkable. It first occurred to us that B Elders had bowled 4 maidens in a row, and then that perhaps his first was a maiden as well. Ben confirmed that to be the case and his unbelievable feat of not conceding a single run continued. Wadders got another wicket. Ben bowled another maiden. An edge raced along the ground and was well stopped by Joseph at 3rd slip. Maiden. Stratten dived over a similar edge, but a swoop from Johnson at backward point prevented a single. Maiden. A polite round of applause from the fielders in Ben’s 9th over recognised 50 dot balls without conceding a run – something we will probably never see again. Ben completed the maiden. Eventually a run was conceded in Elders’ 10th over before he took what is probably the most deserved wicket of all time. After around thirty play-and-misses an MTSCC player finally managed to feather an edge to M Singleton behind the stumps. A second wicket followed in very similar fashion and Elders finished with figures of 17-11-13-2, but his figures were slightly let down by 7 runs coming in his last over as he tired. It really was a truly brilliant spell. Relentless accuracy interspersed with snorting unplayable deliveries made for a very impressive spectacle of seam bowling.

The innings was wrapped up by a short and sweet spell from the always dangerous R Desai who mopped up the tail with a 5-fer inside 6 overs. Ravi is a popular member of the team, but even so his efforts were derided as shameless glory stealing by his teammates. Nevertheless, any spell that returns figures of 5.3 – 1 – 13 – 5 is not to be sniffed at.

Tea was still a way off and so Southgate thought they faced a difficult little session before the interval. However, after M Stratten was on the wrong end of what looked to be a poor caught behind decision, K Jankowicz and M Joseph shared a free scoring partnership. When Karl departed the score was 42-2 and it was apparent that the game would be done and dusted before food was served. Joseph was joined by A Saeed who steered us home, moving the aggregate score since his last dismissal to above 150 in the process. Joseph gave his wicket away with around 10 runs required meaning it was far from a perfect batting performance, but frankly it didn’t have to be.

The early finish did mean that we were able to enjoy a pint with tea. During that drink we dished out some fines and began a small fund that will hopefully go towards promotion celebration drinks at the end of the season. We are currently top of the league but are yet to play the teams in 2nd and 3rd, so there is still plenty to do. We will know a lot more when we’ve played everybody once.

After the blazing weather of Friday, turning up to a Walker Ground shrouded in drizzle did not bode well for the day ahead. Indeed it very much set the tone for our innings, as Ali Lynch took over the reins from one Adrian Carr who had deserted us after the thumping defeat to Osterley, in favour of a ‘lads retreat’ to the continent. It was going to be a tricky day ahead, with the side featuring 9 and a half batsmen.

Much in keeping with 3rd XI captains of old, Ali lost an important toss and were inserted onto a slightly soft wicket with variable bounce. Two young seamers took the new ball for Perivale, and impressed with movement in the air and good bounce. However the fielders seemed to have engaged in a game of Hot Potato, as they did everything in their power to not catch the ball. Early reprieves for our skipper were punished, as he ground out an important 48. Running between the wickets was aggressive and took advantage of their poor fielding as runs were hard to come by.

Mark Hughes at the other end appeared to be playing on a different wicket, looking sound in defence agains the new ball. He too was dropped, at slip, and punished the Phoenicians particularly through point with an array of productive cuts and dabs.The opening partnership yielded 145 in 33 overs, and gave us a fantastic platform to post a big score. Ali was finally run out after a slight mix up, and Sharma and Berman swung the willow to score 17 and 23 respectively.

At the other end, Hughes fought through injury to rotate strike and played some sweet shots over mid on to the spinners. It was a great moment when he brought up his maiden league century, and it was a just reward for a near faultless innings in tricky conditions. We ended our innings on 234-5, with Mark finishing on an unbeaten 108.

Tea was good, a selection of sandwiches finished off with cake was more than adequate for the Southgate men who took to the field with the intimidating partnership of Carter and Marett sharing the new ball. The openers came hard at us, with big shots over mid wicket their particular favourites. Drops from behind the wicket and point didn’t help, but captain Lynch took a good running catch to take our first wicket.

The introduction of Shoaib yielded a wicket first ball (bowled leg stump) and immediately he found turn and bounce, troubling batsman, keeper and short fine leg. At 50 odd for 2 the game was evenly poised, and numbers 3 (45) and 4 (32) batted very well picking up singles and smashing anything short for four. As our primary bowling attack faltered, the skipper wasn’t left with much to play with. He threw the ball to Marcello, eager to stamp his brand of cricket on the game. 3 pull shots yielded 3 boundaries and after number 4 was comprehensively dropped by yours truly, a few heads went down and we felt the game slipping away (130-2) at drinks.

Ali kept us motivated in the field, and maintained faith in Marcello who produced a short ball which number 4 absolutely nailed into the hands of Mike Carter, who took a good catch. This was certainly the turning point in the game. Number 5 was peppered with a few short deliveries, charged down to hit a huge six, and was promptly bowled by Shoaib trying to double his strike rate. A Roy Marett fielding masterclass brought about the running out of number 3, and suddenly we were all over the game at 150-5.

Number 6 should’ve bought a lottery ticket after his 31, before being bowled whilst Sarfaraz made up for his earlier drop by taking number 7, both off Marcello’s bowling. He went on to clean up number 9 before Perivale began playing for the draw. With 4 overs left, men crowded around the bat as the number 11 who had impressed with the ball settled in to block out. However moments later a stunning catch at silly mid on from Ali sealed a great victory, finishing of a De Crescenzo 5-for and a Southgate win by 28 runs.

An important result, as we look ahead to next week against an unbeaten Indian Gymkhana. With batters in good form and bowlers set to return, this could be the start of the promotion push for us.

We set off to Wembley high in hope and expectation of our first win of the year. We’ve had several draws and Wembley are rooted to the bottom of the table. In the end we got what we went for, but were made to work hard in a good game.

After being put in the batting part of the equation worked out in a pretty straightforward way. Michal Wloch continued excellent form with 83 out of a first wicket partnership of 119. The main challenge came when the spinners came on as there was turn for them, particularly a young leg spinner who moved it both ways. Everyone contributed, particularly Sam Larner who made a well struck 30 at a good rate. This allowed us to declare a couple of overs before half way at 232-8.

The Wembley innings started well for us with Rishi Kent and Liam Babwah each taking an early wicket (we benefited from Liam’s school game being washed out that morning). Then there were a couple of dropped catches which fueled the skipper’s natural pessimism. The third wicket fell to Rishi c&b, but then there was resistance from numbers 4 and 5. Dave Huntingford bowled well in his first game of the season, but with no luck. So only 3 down at half way.

The next wicket was the classic ‘one for drinks’ when Delmore induced the batsman to slap the ball high to Sam Larner at cover. Shaff Babwah started his spell and immediately got the number 5 bowled. Overall Shaff’s spell was 12-6-9-3 as he took advantage of the turn to winkle out some stubborn defensive Wembley batting. At the other end the bowlers were rotated and there was some concern creeping in as Wembley were only 6 down with 14 overs to go. An apparently studious left hander, would had played a dead and straight bat until that point, couldn’t resist a floated delivery from Gordon and swiped across the line to be bowled.

Liam Babwah came back and in a healthy rivalry with his dad they set about the tail. Shaff bowled number 9 and then Liam bowled the number 6 who had hung around for 14 overs. This left us with 8 overs at 10 and 11. These were two experienced players who had clearly been in this position more than a few times over the years. The tension rose as they blocked the straight ones and missed anything wider. Finally number 10 got a very thin edge to the keeper in the third last over and the celebrations started. So not right down to the wire, as we didn’t need the extra two overs we had in the bank from declaring before half time, but it was becoming uncomfortable.

Doug Gordon

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1st XI Middlesex Cup v Stanmore

At full strength, with just one change from Saturday, Southgate were favourites to beat Stanmore who were without their two Middlesex professionals.

That favouritism and confidence of victory lasted until the 86^th over of the scheduled 90 when captain Faisal was informed by the umpires that his team were behind the over rate and in danger of being docked 6 runs per over and the shortfall was likely to be two overs!

It was immediately panic stations and Southgate started moving like men possessed, bowlers running back to their mark, shortening their run, fielders not reaching their designated fielding positions in time, no chance to effect fielding position changes and a complete loss of focus in the attempt to bowl their overs quickly.

The result of all this meant that when the last over started, with Stanmore numbers 9 and 10 at the wicket, the nine run winning target was reduced to just 3 as Southgate had only bowled one over too few in the end.

The home number 10 batsman smashed the first ball of the last over for 4 and a surprise victory went to the home team.

The aforementioned confidence of victory was down to a splendid total of 232-4 in their 45 overs, with Lassie(34), Thompson(36), Edrich (73) and Stevens(50) all contributing well. Wickets fell regularly during the Stanmore innings and at 105-6 and later at 181-8 Southgate were very much hot favourites.

With 11 overs remaining Stanmore required 87 runs to win but batting at 5 for the home team was Karayaratne, a pal of Lassie’s from the Sri Lankan under 19 team, and he had already shown his class with some high quality fast bowling and now it was his turn to star with the bat. And star he did as he scored a brilliant 64 before being caught by Arnie at short third man. A further wicket fell in the same over and at 181-8 requiring 8 an over it should have been game over but soon after that mayhem took over.

Keystone cops !!

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** Impromptu Club BBQ ———————————————————— Consider yourself cordially invited to an impromptu BBQ on Saturday evening at 19:30. Everyone is welcome, please feel free to bring partners and children. All are welcome from the youngest colts to oldest codgers. (Sorry for the short notice!)

Southgate registered their second consecutive victory with a fairly comfortable four wicket win on a poor pitch clearly prepared for the home team’s four spinners.

If last week’s win against Richmond was an example of underdogs winning against the odds then this was a case of the better team getting their just rewards.

Luke Hutton had an early success when he induced one opener to play on, a feat he later repeated when he took the tenth wicket in the same manner.

With the score at 48-1 off 10 overs, spin was introduced and Lassie was prodigious in the amount of spin he obtained from the pitch. He was joined by spin twin Ashley Sivarajah and they revelled in the conditions for a while and took 3 quick wickets. At the fall of the fourth wicket Kharda was joined by Gymkhana’s overseas player, Meera, in his second season with the club, and he brought a touch of batting class to the proceedings. Southgate then had their worst spell of the day for about half an hour with three bad fielding lapses (on a bumpy outfield) and bowling a succession of wides (24 altogether !), partly due to the aforementioned excessive turn and uneven bounce. Phil Dunnett had to cope with these difficulties with the ball sometimes kicking and bouncing head high. Faisal switched his bowlers around and Michael Stevens forced Meera to hit the ball in the air straight to Woffers at short extra cover where he held the catch comfortably. The latter, meanwhile, after one unsuccessful over earlier which yielded 8 runs, was by now toiling away at the other end and this seemed more suited to his away swingers and he bowled his next 9 overs consecutively to take 2-22. Ashley(3-36) and Lassie(2-30) returned to finish the innings and at 159-9 the end seemed imminent but a last wicket stand of 26 could have proved as crucial as in Southgate’s victory in the Richmond game. Hutton returned to finish the innings at 185.

The start of the Southgate reply and Gymkhana’s use of their bowling attack may remind older members of the famous Indian spin attack in Tests of the seventies and eighties where any two assorted seamers would bowl a few overs before Bedi,Venkat, Chandresakar and Prassana would bowl for the rest of the innings.

Thus, in the ninth over of seam Michael Stevens smashed four fours to take his opening partnership with James Thompson to 50. Spin was then introduced but the opening pair’s confidence was high and they continued along their merry way, even against some high quality slow bowling, until Stevens was out for 61 with the score at 92 in the 18th over. A splendid start to a run chase, but a collapse saw Lassie stumped; Tom Edrich totally bamboozled by a long hop which turned and bounced so much that he somehow gloved it to short mid-wicket; Tom Smith bowled by a short ball aiming over mid wicket; Phil Dunnett playing a similar shot to a similar ball; Sayota attempting to late cut an off spinner after the bowler had altered his line by moving from round to over the wicket that very ball. To use a football commentator’s expression ‘they would all have been very disappointed’ at the way they were out. The only redeeming feature of all this was an exciting cameo innings on debut, by MCC Ground staffer , Tom Smith, whose innings of 21 including a magnificent reverse hit for six (although he was out next ball ! )

Meanwhile, all this time James Thompson was ploughing a lonely furrow at the other end, showing immense concentration with excellent running between the wickets and sound judgment in difficult conditions. It is many years since Southgate had an opening batsman who could hold on to one end in a run chase but James showed great determination to assume that role. The regular fall of wickets at the other end, however, meant that there was an element of concern at 162-6 but captain Faisal (15*) brought a steady hand to the innings and he and James (63*) saw the team home.

Peter Jouning

2nd XI

Southgate 223-7 (50 overs)

Waqas Khan 63, Adeel Saeed 61*

South Hampstead II 194-9 ( overs)

Southgate winning draw Southgate (4) – South Hampstead (1)

Saturday at the Walker saw Southgate’s top of the table 2nd XI host South Hampstead. On a sunny day there is always plenty of merit in batting first – despite the rules remaining unchanged in lower divisions – and especially so on a used wicket where spin can play a part later on. Helpfully Sam Faruqi lost the toss and SHCC elected to field.

The visitors used the new ball to good effect with their nippy left-armer B. Akram – a good name for that style of bowler – beating the bat often. In an economical spell he picked up the wickets of Johnson and Joseph both bowled whilst Jankowicz nicked behind at the other end leaving SCC precariously placed at 43-3 at the 15 over mark.

Fortunately Adeel Saeed continued his excellent form in partnership with Scott Ellis, their counter attacking maintaining a decent run rate and spreading the field. With change bowlers operating the tempo increased nicely only for Ellis (28) to depart just as he was looking very well set and the pair had added an important 51.

94-4 was a pivotal moment but any hope of a South Hampstead revival was firmly quashed by Waqas Khan, settling the nerves of Captain Sam who paced, cigarette in hand. Waqas initially played himself in sensibly then proceeded to bully the opposition bowlers in an entertaining knock of 67, pulling out an audacious ‘switch hit’ for four much to the delight of all in attendance. Adeel (69*) calmly played 2nd fiddle and a highly profitable and entertaining partnership of 109 ensued, taking Southgate past 200 in good time.

The declaration came at a decent total of 223-7 at 50 overs with credit due to Scott and Waqas for their aggression and Adeel for providing the stability which saw us pass the 200 mark. These two significant partnerships produced a competitive score and highlighted the value of someone batting through the overs, well done Adeel.

Debutant Ben Elders was entrusted with the new ball on league debut and the tall left-armer from Thirsk duly thundered in from the Adelaide end. An hour later and South Hampstead were in dire trouble at 48-5, Elders bowling with good control and pace to pick up four cheap wickets and Suresh Kalagara backing him up with one of his own.

Just as per the Southgate innings there were two partnerships of note in the South Hampstead reply standing in the way of a full ten point win.

Some expansive hitting from Parvez (33) coming in at number seven kept the scoreboard ticking along, at the other end the opening bat played with care and booked in for the long haul. Spinners Ravi Desai and Rob Johnson toiled away nicely in tandem with Ravi breaking the 64 run partnership and then taking another straight away. Two became three immediately as the 8th wicket fell, batsman number 9 padding up on the back foot to a googly from Rob.

118-8 and time to bowl out the last two, we were now very optimistic of a home win.

The SH number 10 however – a left hander called Bilal – had other ideas and played beautifully well, he may find himself up the order very quickly on this showing. With the fourth significant partnership of the day passing 50 he became progressed from a nuisance to a genuine thorn in the side as briefly an unlikely chase seemed increasingly possible.

With 69 runs added amongst some ragged fielding the returning seam bowlers found it difficult to get the breakthrough and the momentum swung back towards the visitors. Sam turned back to spin which fortunately brought instant reward the dangerous Bilal LBW for an enterprising 40.

36 runs required or one wicket for either side to snatch ten points. The big SH opening bowler strode out at number eleven it was conceivable that they might have a dash, there was just enough time but several defensive pushes clearly telegraphed that all bets on a winning chase were off.

Southgate pressed for the win and SH dug in for a point, with men surrounding the bat for the final few overs. Unfortunately the visitors closed on 194-9 and the 2nd XI were left ruing what might have been, four points to the ‘Gate.

Well played the SHCC opening bat who carried his bat for 80 and didn’t flinch under pressure. With a bit more ambition, could he have been a hero and walked off with a 100* and ten points, we’ll never know.

A good game of ‘cat and mouse’ cricket and almost a classic Southgate home win batting first. Whilst the four points maintained our position at the top of the table, in the cold light of day we might reflect that it probably should have been ten.

Rob Johnson

3rd XI

Southgate 189 all out (46 overs)

Shoaib Zulfiqar 69 Alistair Lynch 55

Osterley 189-2 all-out (36 overs)

Osterley Win

Osterley really were a good team – by far the best I’ve ever encountered at 3rd team level. The wicket was true but pacy with good carry. They opened with two good quicks. One of them soon bowled Ankit & Deano, the later first ball. Shoaib & Berman then added 50 although Josh only got 11 of them. Shoaib looked very good and eventually got 69 out of 100. Alistair Lynch also batted very well for 55. Sarfaraz was okay getting 25 but left three consequtive balls from an off spinner in the 39th over just when we needed to be pushing on ? Had the Shoaib / Lynch partnership lasted a little longer we may have got 225. Osterley’s opener who had bowled Ankit & Deano with the new ball later came back to bowl leg spin ending up with 7-50. Batting wise they came out playing shots. The 6’5″ captain just hit down the ground but the other opener was real quality, often playing the ball late with a vertical bat to angle the ball behind square. Roy Marett bowled pretty well ( 7 overs for 17) but without really threatening. Mike Carter fell on his sword after just 3 overs.. I introduced Deano straightaway thinking that slow bowling might be the key but other than getting the captain stumped off a wide they played him with ease. I likewise tried to bowl slow but went for near enough 20 in 2 overs so reverted to seam. This was better ( about 25 off 7.3 overs ) and I got the other opener LBW but the game had long gone. Shoaib tried spin & seam but was a bit expensive because nos 3 & 4 were also very good. Sarfaraz bowled at the end and to be fair was pretty good. I have to say I was surprised when I looked at the MCCL League tables and saw that Osterley 2nds were only lower mid-table in Division 2.

Adrian Carr

4th XI

Southgate 278-6 (46 overs)

Michal Wloch 135

TGP 243-2 all-out (46 overs)

Bernard Hughes 136 not out

Southgate winning draw Southgate (4) – TGP (1)

The fine Southgate total was based on a an excellent second wicket partnership of 140 between Sal Syed and Michal Wloch. Michal went to get 135, which in the context of 4th XI cricket must be a ‘daddy’. What do you think? Michal has just returned to Southgate after a few years following uni. A very welcome return. Everyone else chipped in, particularly Tom Clark who got a brisk 20-odd. We declared at half way and felt pretty confident.

But the TGP innings was pretty much a mirror of ours. Their skipper got 136 mot out and we couldn’t get into the wickets. They might have got the runs if their skipper hadn’t tired and was hitting singles instead of boundaries at the end. The difference was probably Abdullah Munawar, who bowled 15 overs in two spells and went for less than 4 an over, when the asking rate was 6. As the rest of us went for just about the 6 an over the runs Abdullah saved were the difference and got us the 4 points.

Royal London National Club Championship

Southgate 204-6 (45 overs)

Faisal Mir 70* Phil Dunnett 63

Finchley 118-all out (27.3 overs)

Luke Hutton 4-25

Southgate won by 86 runs

Finchley Cricket Club on a sunny day is a cracking place to play cricket. Sunday’s Royal London National Club Championship 3rd round fixture offered a stern test of Southgate’s 1st XI against one of the form teams in the Premier Division.

Both sides entered the match in good spirits, Southgate on the back of a very satisfying win at Indian Gymkhana and Finchley having skittled the 2014 Champions Teddington for 57.

Win the toss and bat first was the plan, unfortunately one of Saturday’s heroes, Michael Stevens was grabbed at slip early in the face of some very accurate and testing new ball bowling. Sahota and Edrich found run scoring hard to come by but worked very hard until Tom skied one looking to break the shackles.

Ayush Sahota playing against his former side was keen to impress and duly hit some muscular boundaries but his departure for a solid 24 left Southgate 65-3, a pivotal stage of the match.

Cometh the hour, cometh the Vice-Captain at four and Captain at five who together added an important 99 runs, this took Southgate into the 160s and towards a workable total. Phil Dunnett made an eye-catching 63 from 76 balls and Faisal an invaluable 70* from 90 guiding us past the 200 mark.

After a lot of ‘hard yakka’ in the heat of the day Finchley picked up a couple of late consolation wickets but a final total of 204-6 was, we hoped, defendable with good bowling, fielding and of course catching.

The opening salvo from Southgate’s new ball bowlers Luke Hutton and Suresh Kalagara would be critical to our chances with Southgate needing to retain control of the game during Finchley’s 15 over power-play. The passage of play to follow was almost hard to believe as the home side crumbled to 37-5 in quick time.

Hutton took three wickets including the dangerous Niraj Jadav – who had hit 200 in the previous round – for a first ball duck. The scorecard recorded him Ct. Stevens b. Hutton which suggests a slip catch and indeed it was, however those in attendance will remember it as one of the more bizarre dismissals you’ll see. In summary Luke bowled a well-directed bumper, the batsman ducked but left the ‘periscope’ up and somehow deflected it toward Phil who parried it upwards with his thumb allowing Michael to finally catch the rebound, an extraordinary effort and a key breakthrough.

Spin was introduced and Siva compounded Finchley’s problems with three quick wickets, Mikey grabbed two at his end and at 79-9 we really should have wrapped things up by over 100 runs however a late rally made it only 86 with Hutton returning to finished the match and take his fourth wicket.

What a win!

Sometimes things work for you and some days they don’t, we had some luck with a couple of strangles but we batted and bowled well, absorbed the pressure and created it. Winning becomes a habit and long may the good run continue!

The next round of the National Knockout is Sunday the 21st at home against Brentwood, the first time we’ve reached this stage of the tournament since Alvin Durgacharan’s side met Cambridge Granta in 2007.

Southgate topped of their great weekend on Sunday 7th June by overcoming Finchley in emphatic fashion and moving into the last 32 of the Royal National Cup .

The victory was set up by a superb 63 from Phil Dunnett at 4 and a solid captains knock of 70* at 5 from Faisal Mir to set up a total of 204.

This was then backed up in the field by a brilliant bowling display from Hutton ( 4 – 25 ) and Sivarajah (3 – 19 ) who were ably supported by Stevens and Kalagara to bowl Finchley out for 118 ( scorecard below ).

A proud day for the club as we can’t think the last time we reached the last 32 of the National Cup ( Ricky Gunn ) ?

Our next opponents are Brentwood CC at home on Sunday 21st June and we urge all to clear their diaries to come support Mir’s men in a fortnight’s time.

Southgate registered their second consecutive victory with a fairly comfortable four wicket win on a poor pitch clearly prepared for the home team’s four spinners.

If last week’s win against Richmond was an example of underdogs winning against the odds then this was a case of the better team getting their just rewards.

Luke Hutton had an early success when he induced one opener to play on, a feat he later repeated when he took the tenth wicket in the same manner.

With the score at 48-1 off 10 overs, spin was introduced and Lassie was prodigious in the amount of spin he obtained from the pitch. He was joined by spin twin Ashley Sivarajah and they revelled in the conditions for a while and took 3 quick wickets. At the fall of the fourth wicket Kharda was joined by Gymkhana’s overseas player, Meera, in his second season with the club, and he brought a touch of batting class to the proceedings. Southgate then had their worst spell of the day for about half an hour with three bad fielding lapses (on a bumpy outfield) and bowling a succession of wides (24 altogether !), partly due to the aforementioned excessive turn and uneven bounce. Phil Dunnett had to cope with these difficulties with the ball sometimes kicking and bouncing head high. Faisal switched his bowlers around and Michael Stevens forced Meera to hit the ball in the air straight to Woffers at short extra cover where he held the catch comfortably. The latter, meanwhile, after one unsuccessful over earlier which yielded 8 runs, was by now toiling away at the other end and this seemed more suited to his away swingers and he bowled his next 9 overs consecutively to take 2-22. Ashley(3-36) and Lassie(2-30) returned to finish the innings and at 159-9 the end seemed imminent but a last wicket stand of 26 could have proved as crucial as in Southgate’s victory in the Richmond game. Hutton returned to finish the innings at 185.

The start of the Southgate reply and Gymkhana’s use of their bowling attack may remind older members of the famous Indian spin attack in Tests of the seventies and eighties where any two assorted seamers would bowl a few overs before Bedi,Venkat, Chandresakar and Prassana would bowl for the rest of the innings.

Thus, in the ninth over of seam Michael Stevens smashed four fours to take his opening partnership with James Thompson to 50. Spin was then introduced but the opening pair’s confidence was high and they continued along their merry way, even against some high quality slow bowling, until Stevens was out for 61 with the score at 92 in the 18th over. A splendid start to a run chase, but a collapse saw Lassie stumped; Tom Edrich totally bamboozled by a long hop which turned and bounced so much that he somehow gloved it to short mid-wicket; Tom Smith bowled by a short ball aiming over mid wicket; Phil Dunnett playing a similar shot to a similar ball; Sayota attempting to late cut an off spinner after the bowler had altered his line by moving from round to over the wicket that very ball. To use a football commentator’s expression ‘they would all have been very disappointed’ at the way they were out. The only redeeming feature of all this was an exciting cameo innings on debut, by MCC Ground staffer , Tom Smith, whose innings of 21 including a magnificent reverse hit for six (although he was out next ball ! )

Meanwhile, all this time James Thompson was ploughing a lonely furrow at the other end, showing immense concentration with excellent running between the wickets and sound judgment in difficult conditions. It is many years since Southgate had an opening batsman who could hold on to one end in a run chase but James showed great determination to assume that role. The regular fall of wickets at the other end, however, meant that there was an element of concern at 162-6 but captain Faisal (15*) brought a steady hand to the innings and he and James (63*) saw the team home.

The fourth league encounter for Southgate saw high flying Richmond arrive at the Walker after winning all three of their league games thus far. It’s fair to say with Southgate not quite getting over the line in the last two games and languishing somewhere near the bottom it was going to be a stiff task but one the team was relishing as we knew we weren’t too far away .

Training had gone really well mid week with the emphasis of where we need to be improving alongside some really good healthy debate amongst the team, which has been encouraging.

So to Saturday where we knew the talking had to stop and our best laid plans needed to be executed.

Task one the toss, Mir’s tossing had been consistent to date knocking all three out and was hoping for a fourth success, unfortunately the toss was lost and we were inserted on a rather unfamiliar greenish wicket.

This season’s new opening pair of Lakshan and Thompson strode to the crease in the pursuit of seeing off the new ball pairing of Stacey and Burton (Northants 2’s ) who have been in good form . After negotiating the first couple of overs of swing/seam and some indifferent bounce Lassy fell to Burton by just turning on one that straightened too early for a simple caught and bowled.

Tom “let’s not lose wickets in clusters ” Edrich on the back of a very good 60 against North Midd entered the fray at 3 looking to shore up things as we had discussed and found out in previous weeks the consequences of losing wickets in “clusters”. Unfortunately Tom knicked off to what only could be described as a brute of a delivery , squaring him up and taking the shoulder of the blade into the keeper’s hands with the score on 14.

Next in was our own Darren “teletubby” Stevens , who managed to have an early night for once ( five pints and only two establishments visited, home by 12am apparently ) much to the skipper’s delight. Mikey was very watchful at first against some really good hostile bowling from Burton and good accuracy from Stacey . Although not much scoring occurred the plan of trying to see these two off albeit in the power play was crucial as we didn’t want to hit familiar ground of being 30-3 as we have been recently.

However the first moment of controversy came as Thompson was given out to a debatable grab in the slip cordon off Burton who had his tail up. It seemed that the second slip had gone for the catch , fumbled it and then grabbed it again (seen plenty of times on the TV and impossible to tell if it touched the ground ), the standing umpire was very unsure about the whole situation, Jammo seemed confident that the ball hit the ground and stood his ground whereas the square leg umpire felt that the ball did not touch the ground and thought alongside the fielding team that it was a genuine catch so gave the decision. Bit of a bitter pill for James to take and so reluctantly had to walk to the changing rooms after doing all the hard work for the best part of 10 overs.

Nevertheless we had entered our “cluster” territory for the fourth time this season !

With our backs against the wall there was only one man to call for to repair the damage , Ayush “Terminator” Sahota. Fresh from just finishing 100 diamond push ups Arnie gently strode to the crease ( doesn’t believe in increasing the heart rate and has to protect those gains ) ever so slightly expanded and pumped.

The Terminator and “Po” our resident Teletubby then went about showing Richmond that we weren’t going to crumble and produced a crucial 71 run partnership which included an audacious Dilshan scoop by “po” who was being bogged down by some good wicket to wicket bowling and Arnie who when hits a ball it stays hit.

We were looking forward to both of these set batsmen to kick again for a big partnership with the new bowlers being implemented, however that was marred with the controversial run out of Arnie who seemed as if he had made his ground to a quick single only for the umpire to raise the finger meaning we were 107-4.

Terrible disappointing for Ayush who batted very well for the second week running coming in at difficult period and no doubt “he’ll be back”.

Even more disappointing for us just after drinks we had lost “teletubby” Stevens in an even more unlucky fashion, just defending a good length ball only for the ball to roll back onto his stumps for a dogged 48. Fair to say it was the pivotal innings of the day and very well stuck at “Po”

Richmond now had their tails up and were bowling well to the incoming Skipper and Dunnett who were very watchful at first but a misjudged sweep from Phil saw him adjudged lbw to the spinner followed by the skipper who managed to hit a well timed full toss back to the same spinner who took a good catch. Hutton fell in similar fashion and when Johnson nicked off to the opening seam bowler Burton we looked as if we were 60/70 runs short.

However a crucial 30 run partnership ( the exact margin we won by ) by Kalagara and Woffinden saw us regain some momentum back going into the second half , by firstly frustrating the opposition with the last wicket stand by running hard, playing sensible shots and crucially batting all our alotted 50 overs.

171 to defend on a indifferent pitch meant we had a fighting chance provided we bowled out of our skins and took all our chances. The chat was that Richmond would think they would stroll this and it was our job to make it as hard as possible for them and to create doubt.

The”Woff” was asked to come charging up the hill for the first over and look to “rush” the batsman up , while Mir would look to contain. The opening Richmond pair batted sensibly and picked off anything loose, from time to time they did take a risk or two but calculated. We manage to drop one of their “unconvincing”openers early on and thought what might have been as they managed to put on a 50 plus partnership but our resident aussie Luke Hutton came on and managed to get out the aggressive of the two openers with a mis timed pull straight to Stevens at square leg.

Their no.3 three strutted in to the crease in a rush as if he was going to finish this off in 20 overs and be back in Richmond before the FA cup final started. Playing a few hard hitting shots, one notably to Luke who palmed it and managed to bruise his bowling hand and so had to come off had then the pleasure of trying to see if he could do the same to the returning “Woff” and our Sri Lankan import Lassy. After some tight bowling from both our slow bowlers Lassy managed to get the other opener with a good catch from Dunnett behind the stumps. After struggling to work out our mystery spinner ( the “woff” ), Smith the Richmond no.3 pulled out a shot straight from farmer’s weekly and mowed it to cow corner. With a few of the boys unconvinced , especially the “Woff” he decided to throw it up again and similar to North Midd’s no.3 the week before came charging down the wicket only to completely miss it with Dunnett throwing the stumps down, well one bail. Not a pretty sight for himself or his team and left the field with his head in the air.

The score was 78-3 with Lassy now closing his end up so Richmond needed 100 of 30 overs, we were still very much against it but a feeling of belief had started to blossom. They’ll think it’s easy boys , let’s make them work hard for every run, give them nothing.

With the skipper weary about saving Lassy at the back end , our teletubby also known as “Dazza” (Darren Stevens ) when bowling was brought on from down the Hill to see if he could sneak a few wickets before the drinks break. The period of play to drinks which followed with Kalagara and Stevens for me was where won the game. “Dazza” came on and bowled superbly nibbling it about, hitting that seam and not giving anything to the two new batters. They didn’t quite know what to do and in no time Richmond found themselves 82-5 with both their skipper ( lbw ) and the overseas ( great catch by Woffs who was positioned with precision at fine legish) who tonned up last week in the sheds.

In to drinks with that sense of belief growing and confidence for the Southgate boys, while a few were scrambling about on the Richmond bench behind us.

The chat from the skip at drinks was nothing was done and we weren’t even half way to our goal so we had to step it up and be ruthless and clinical, we had them on the ropes but we couldn’t allow them to throw any punches through disciplined bowling and sharp fielding, the mistakes would come.

82-5 turned into 102-7 with Suresh nipping out the new batter with another great take by Phil standing up and an outstanding piece of fielding from “Dazza” at square leg to run out their no.8 who looked as if he could play. It was time to ring the changes again and after a great spell from “Dazza” , the skipper returned from the down the hill while Lassy was brought on from up the hill knowing it was time to try go for the jugular. Lassy managed to trap their no.6 who swept the wrong ball and was looking threatening and the team could smell blood. Mir at the other end in the power play tried keeping it tight with the number 9 and 10 who to be fair to them stood up valiantly under the pressure and managed to put a 21 run partnership, the score being 137-8.

The final controversial moment of the game occured right at the back end of the game and one which we thought was an injustice. Richmond’s no. 10 seemed to have run for a quick single off Edrich at mid wicket only for him to run across the entire wicket and then look to cause obstruction to the throw. We thought he had deliberately done this and appealed only for the umpire at the standing end deeming he didn’t see it . Both umpires got together and discussed the matter at length, we thought it was a straight forward decision in that you are not allowed to obstruct the ball, however the umpires came to the decision that they didn’t see the incident and so could not be certain .

A very lucky let off indeed for Richmond and considering the tightness of the game it’s fair to say we were not impressed. However the uphill task of getting the 32 runs for the last 2 wickets was still there and we knew we had to keep concentrating on the job ahead.

With the runs drying up at both ends and the power play over their no.10 tried swiping one off Mir’s bowling only to be wrapped on the pads and giving out lbw, cue the celebrations and a few choice words but now was not the time we needed one more wicket and both Lassy and Mir had bowled out !

It was only fitting for one man to come up the hill and finish it off our very own teletubby “Dazza ” Stevens and cap what had been a superb day for him .

Their no.9 knew it was time to try and take the risk with the last batsman in and 30 to get so he tried to go over the top , however he only managed to sky it to the skipper at extra cover and the rest was history.

Cue the celebrations……………………………………………. !

A truly memorable day for the 1st XI and a brilliant bowling and fielding display defending 171against the joint league leaders.

A fantastic game to be part of and more importantly Southgate’s first win in the Premier league, something which we’ve been searching for in the last few games and something which we didn’t manage to do at all last time we were in the Premier division.

We knew we weren’t far away and it was something we have been striving for ever since we got into the Prem as now with that win we can really kick on and really showcase the talent we have in the side.

Congratulations to the 1st XI who managed to register their first win in the premier division over in form Richmond who had won all three of their previous games.

Mir’s men scored 171 on a testing wicket after losing the toss and then fought valiantly to bowl out joint league leaders Richmond for 141 with contributions all round.

Having previously gone close in the last two games the boys went one better and managed to cross the line this time earning 10 big ones. Unlike the previous time Southgate were in the Prem where we failed to register a single win the team can now look forward at doubling their tally at Indian Gymkhana this week.